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Chinese cyprus in grounds of the Temple of Heaven, Beijing
Notice board from above
Pinus tabulaeformis
in grounds of the Summer Palace, Beijing
Pinus tabulaeformis
in grounds of the Ming tombs, north-west of Beijing
Nine dragon juniper
in grounds of Temple of Heaven |
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Dr Hillary Allison, Policy Director, Woodland Trust
provided these wonderful pictures on her recent trip to Beijing. She
says:-
'In between attending an Asia Pacific symposium on sustainable forest
management and an international workshop on forest restoration and climate
change in September 2008 I managed to get out and about in the parks and
streets of Beijing to find a few ancient trees. The official trees of
Beijing are the scholar tree and the oriental cypress approved as such by
the People’s Congress in 1987.
Most of the ancient tress in Beijing are found in the parks and gardens of
the temples around the city and there are more than 16000 ancient trees
within the Beijing administrative district (which extends 2 hours out of
Beijing itself).
All trees greater than 100 years old have a green tag and those which are
more than 300 have a red tag (you can see them in the pictures). The Beijing
Forestry Society and the Beijing Forests, Parks and Garden Services have
planted literally tens of millions of trees all around for the Olympics.
There were some 1000 year old trees in Zhongshan Park close to the Forbidden
City in the centre of Beijing but I didn’t have time to find them.
However, here are a selection of photos of some of the rest. For further
information see Dembner S Urban Forestry in Beijing Unasylva 173 44(2)
13-18.
Click on pictures to enlarge |
